Part 5

It was openly rumored that the merchants in Troy and Albany were hiring gangs to bring foreign goods into the country in this fashion. Some Customs officers tried to stop the traffic, though most were in sympathy with the smugglers. In one case a Customs officer leaped aboard a smuggling craft to seize the cargo and arrest the crew. He was carried across the boundary line, and then dumped unceremoniously overboard in water which, fortunately, reached only to his chin.

One method of getting Vermont goods across the border into Canada was this: dozens of wagons or sleds would be loaded with barrels of pork, flour, and other commodities. They would be driven to a hillside point on the American side of the border. A hut would be built in such a way that, when a stone was kicked from the foundation, the hut would collapse, the floor would tilt and the contents would roll down the slope of the hill into Canada, where men were waiting to receive it. Who was guilty of smuggling if barrels of merchandise, of their own momentum, suddenly rolled across the border into Canada?

Many Vermonters, however, applauded the action of the President and supported Customs Collector Penniman in his efforts to halt the illegal trade across the border. A group of citizens in Franklin County publicly applauded the action of the President and the Collector. They said that the lumber and potash merchants were determined to carry on their “nefarious schemes” of smuggling by armed force if necessary and that threats had been made to kill the Collector if he attempted to enforce the laws. There were hints also of a citizens’ agreement for an uprising if any troops should kill anyone in the process of law enforcement.

Soldiers were stationed along the border at Windmill Point on the western shore of Alburg under the command of Major Charles K. Williams, who later was to become Governor of Vermont. The Customs officers themselves had a twelve-oared cutter called _The Fly_, which they used near the outlet of the lake to intercept smuggling operations.

One of the most famous of the boats used by the smugglers was known throughout the area as the _Black Snake_. This boat was originally built for ferry service between Charlotte and Essex, New York. It was 40 feet long, 17 feet wide, and had seven oars on each side in addition to a sail. After being smeared with tar, the boat was almost invisible at night. It was said to have a capacity of 100 barrels of ashes, and for a single run across the border the owners received $5,000 to $6,000.

The _Black Snake_ would sneak into St. Albans Bay at night, take on a cargo of potash, and then slip through various creeks and inlets into Missisquoi Bay, across Cook’s Bay, and into Canada at a point about one mile north of Alburg Springs.

Customs officers tried without success for months to halt the operations of the _Black Snake_. At last, in August, 1808, government officials detailed Lt. Daniel Farrington, Sgt. David D. Johnson, and twelve infantry privates to board the Customs boat, _The Fly_. Their orders were to pursue the _Black Snake_ until its capture.

On the night of August 2, the _Black Snake_ moved into the Onion River to take on a cargo of potash. The commander of the craft was Truman Mudgett of Highgate, a burly, thick-chested man whose defiance of the Customs officers had made his craft famous.

Mudgett knew that _The Fly_ was in the area seeking his hiding place, and throughout the night he and his crew oiled and tested their rifles at their camp site on the bank of the river. They also test-fired their small artillery piece, a gun 8 feet long with a bore of 1¼ inches which fired fifteen 16-ounce slugs of lead. They had long poles for fending off a boarding party, 3-foot-long clubs, and baskets filled with stones the size of a man’s fist.

The poles were to be used first to prevent anyone boarding the _Black Snake_. If this did not succeed, then the crew were to use the clubs and stones. As a last resort, they were to defend themselves with the guns.

At daybreak on August 3, a lookout came racing to the camp to warn the smugglers that _The Fly_ was moving up the Onion River. Within a few minutes the revenue cutter came into view and closed on the _Black Snake_.

Mudgett shouted at Lieutenant Farrington: “I’ll blow the first man through who lays his hand on the _Snake_!”

Farrington coolly ignored the warning. He leaped from _The Fly_ onto the _Black Snake_ and ordered Sergeant Johnson to come aboard with six men and commandeer the outlaw craft.

“You’ll never get out of this river alive,” shouted Mudgett as he turned and ran back into the woods to rejoin his men.

Farrington sent four soldiers ashore to search for the crew of the _Black Snake_ and then he returned to the helm of the cutter and started downstream with his prize. They had gone about half a mile when the smugglers opened fire from behind an embankment above the river. Farrington ordered Pvt. Elias Drake to take the helm of the cutter, but as Drake reached for the helm a bullet tore through his head and killed him instantly.

As gunfire raked the cutter, Farrington ordered his men to lie flat in the boat. He grabbed an oar and maneuvered the craft ashore below the smugglers’ hiding place. Then he and his men leaped ashore and started to move against the smugglers.

They had advanced only a few yards when the attackers fired the blunderbuss artillery piece. Two men fell dead under the hail of lead, and Farrington was badly wounded. Sergeant Johnson rallied the men and succeeded in capturing all but two of the _Black Snake_’s crew. They were lodged in jail at Burlington, and later the two smugglers who escaped were rounded up.

Cyrus B. Dean, one of the smugglers, was convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged. A crowd of ten thousand gathered in Burlington to witness the execution, and some historians say that Dean was the first man to die of capital punishment in Vermont. Others of the gang, including Mudgett, were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to prison.

The smuggling did not stop when the United States went to war with Great Britain in 1812. The British army in Canada was willing to pay high prices for cattle and other provisions at that time. The Customs officers were almost helpless in trying to halt the traffic across the border. Huge herds of fat oxen and cattle were driven through the woods to the border and turned over to Canadians. The militia were called out to halt the traffic in cattle, but even the militia were unable to man all the crossing points along the border.

Customs officers seized cattle, horses, provisions of all kinds, merchandise, furs, and other articles from the smugglers. It also was found that some Vermonters were making contracts with the British to supply them with masts and spars for their naval vessels. And it was whispered that a prominent Vermont businessman was the backer of a smuggling gang which was selling materials to the British navy. There were gun battles between Customs men and the smugglers.

The War of 1812 had been underway for two years when Sir George Prevost, Governor General of Canada, wrote to Lord Bathurst in the British Foreign Office reporting that “two-thirds of the army in Canada are at this moment eating beef provided by American contractors, drawn principally from the States of Vermont and New York.”

Secretary of War Armstrong was informed by one of his generals that the only way that intercourse with the enemy could be halted was to line the border with troops--which obviously was impossible. The General reported: “Like herds of buffaloes they pressed through the forest, making paths for themselves. Were it not for these supplies, the British forces in Canada would soon be suffering from famine, or their government be subjected to enormous expense for their maintenance.”

The young Customs Service now had fought gun battles on land and “at sea” in an effort to enforce the law. This was a fight that still would be going on a century and a half later.

4

THE PIRATES OF NEW ORLEANS

On November 24, 1813, most citizens of New Orleans were chuckling over a new proclamation, bearing the signature of Gov. W. C. C. Claiborne, which had been posted on bulletin boards throughout the city. They were not so much amused because the Governor had accused a pirate of attacking a U.S. Customs officer (although this was amusing enough to many), but because Claiborne actually expected someone to take seriously his offer of a $500 reward for the capture of the pirate Jean Laffite.

Invade the pirate hideout in the swamps and capture Jean Laffite--or even his brother Pierre--for a mere $500? And Claiborne was naive if he thought that most of Louisiana’s politicians and merchants had any desire to halt the smuggling of pirated merchandise while a war was being fought against Great Britain. Any kind of merchandise was hard to obtain.

Two days after the posting of the proclamation, a wave of raucous laughter sounded in the coffee houses, taverns and drawing rooms of New Orleans. The laughter exploded over a proclamation posted throughout the city which was a parody of the Claiborne document. It offered a reward of $1,500 for the arrest of Governor Claiborne and his delivery to the pirate hideout at Grande Terre in the bayou country south of New Orleans. The proclamation was signed by Jean Laffite.

Laffite’s arrogance was no laughing matter to government officials in Louisiana and Washington. Not only were the pirates openly defying Federal and state authority, but a legitimate merchant had little chance to compete against those who purchased their goods at the pirates’ auctions. The auctions were held regularly on islands in the swamps near New Orleans. Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise--captured on the high seas--could be bought cheaply and with no payment of Customs duties.

The enemies of the Laffites and their cutthroat crew were in the minority. Everyone knew--including Claiborne--that a majority of the people were sympathetic to the Laffites. The general view was that the pirates actually were performing a patriotic service when they attacked ships of the enemy countries, England and Spain, and then made their booty available to Louisiana citizens at ridiculously reduced prices.

Before Claiborne issued his proclamation, the general attitude of the citizenry was fairly summed up in a letter received by the _Louisiana Gazette_ and signed “The Agent of the Freebooters.” There had been a complaint against piracy and smuggling in the newspaper, and the freebooter (perhaps it was Jean Laffite) wrote a reply saying:

Gentlemen:

Your paper of Wednesday contained a letter written by some idiot ... (who) makes a great outcry against a few honest fellows of us, who are using extraordinary exertions to punish the common enemy, the British and their allies, the Spaniards.... Does he wish to discourage our profession and put an end to trade altogether?...

Cannot the booby perceive that without us there would not be a bale of goods at market; and does he not see, by the open manner in which our business is done, that the government of the United States has no objection either to the fitting out of our prizes and the sale of their cargoes, without troubling ourselves about the payment of duties; which I assure you we would find extremely inconvenient when we sell so low for real cash in these hard times....

The legislature paid little attention to Governor Claiborne’s appeals for help in suppressing piracy and smuggling because too many of its members were profiting from the operations of the smugglers or were close friends of Jean and Pierre Laffite.

Honest merchants, competing at great disadvantage against those who bought their goods from the pirates’ stores, were the first to raise a clamor for Claiborne to do something to halt the smuggling. As a result of these demands, Customs Officer Walker Gilbert invaded the pirate country with a company of armed men. As they moved through the marshes south of New Orleans, they encountered Laffite convoying a shipload of contraband goods toward New Orleans. Gilbert and his men attacked the pirates and there was a brief, savage skirmish. Laffite and his group fled from the ship, leaving Gilbert in possession. But before Gilbert could reorganize his forces the pirates counterattacked. One of Gilbert’s men was badly wounded. The Federal officers were driven off. The pirates took over the ship and resumed their journey to New Orleans to sell their booty. It was this episode which caused Claiborne to issue his proclamation that stirred so much amusement.

Piracy and smuggling, after the turn of the century, had become profitable for two prime reasons. The first of these was the worsening relations between the United States and Great Britain, which brought about the embargo on shipping in 1807 and later the War of 1812. Any kind of merchandise was hard to come by and could be sold for a handsome profit. The second reason was the U.S. government’s efforts to outlaw the traffic in slaves.

With the passage of the embargo on slave trade in 1808, the price of Negro slaves in the United States skyrocketed. Slaves could be bought in Cuba for about $300 each and sold for three or four times that amount on the illegal markets in the United States. But then the pirates found it more profitable simply to bypass Cuba and waylay the slave ships at sea. They found a ready market for the slaves in the lower Mississippi Valley, where huge cotton and sugar plantations were being developed and where plantation owners were willing to bid against each other for this cheap labor.

The pirates found Barataria Bay near New Orleans an ideal place from which to operate. In this maze of canals, marshes, bayous and meandering waterways at the mouth of the Mississippi were many hiding places. In addition, the location furnished easy access to the markets of New Orleans.

The Baratarians had a loose organization headed by an Italian named Gamby. The outlaws were forever quarrelling among themselves and Gamby was not strong enough to control them, an internal weakness which was more serious for the pirates than the opposition of Governor Claiborne.

At this time (1810) Jean and Pierre Laffite were living in New Orleans with their younger brother, Antoine, whose name was never to figure in any of their piratical exploits of later years. The elder brothers, all reports agree, were striking-looking men with great personal charm and wit.

Pierre was of medium height, well-built, and handsome, although an illness had affected the muscles in the left side of his face and one of his eyes was slightly crossed. Jean stood 6 feet 2 inches tall, had blue eyes, and black hair. Like his brother, he was shrewd and fearless.

The brothers operated a blacksmith shop in the very heart of the city on St. Philips Street, not far from Bourbon Street. Even on the sultriest, hottest days of summer they kept the bellows blowing on the red-hot coals of the smithy fire. The anvil rang with the blows of their hammers beating lengths of iron into light, strong chains--chains to which slaves would be manacled before being brought to the auctions in the city.

Almost always there were groups of Baratarians lounging in the smithy, rough men with cutlasses at their waists and pistols stuck into their belts. They advised the Laffites on how they wished the chains to be made. And they also talked of their raids on English and Spanish ships, the booty they had brought to their hiding places in the swamps, and the wild parties they had after seizing a ship’s stores of rum, wines and liquors.

For years, the Laffites acted as the “fences” for the pirates, handling slaves as well as other merchandise. It can only be assumed they listened to the tales of adventure, excitement and stolen riches--and became envious of the wealth acquired with such ease by men who were not as intelligent as they. At any rate, Jean Laffite left the smithy regularly to make trips to the pirates’ hideout at Barataria, where he studied their operation.

After a time, Jean won the confidence of the ruffians to such a degree that he was invited to become their leader--despite the mumbling of Gamby. But this gentleman proved to be no problem whatever. He abdicated without a fight after he saw Laffite coldly shoot down one man who questioned his authority.

Laffite had exceptional executive abilities, along with a bold courage. Under his command the pirates of Barataria reached new heights in prosperity and arrogance. Men flocked from New Orleans to his pirate hideout to enlist their services. The stores of stolen goods sometimes were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Regular auctions were held on islands near New Orleans.

While he brought piracy to a new height in the Gulf, Laffite perhaps organized it too well. He made it so efficient that some historians believe he was responsible for its downfall sooner than otherwise might have been. This may well be true, because the pirates achieved such great power under Laffite that the government of the United States could not forever condone their brazen disregard of revenue laws, the slave trade embargo, and the authority of government.

At one period, Laffite had from 800 to 1,000 men under his command--an outlaw army which was equipped with the best artillery and huge stores of powder and ammunition. His artillerymen had no peers in any army in the world. His storehouses were filled with stolen merchandise. On one day 400 Negroes were sold during an auction--which meant a gross business of approximately $500,000 in slaves alone.

Laffite had his choice of the best wines of the Old World. He dined on silverplate. In New Orleans, he and Pierre were seen on the streets, in the coffee houses, and in the taverns in the company of many of the city’s leading businessmen, merchants and lawyers.

Jean Laffite did not like the name of pirate. He called himself a privateer. But in the New Orleans of that day his occupation did not bar him from the society of the leading citizens of the city.

In the summer of 1812, Capt. Andrew Hunter Holmes was sworn in as a Customs officer and led an expedition against Laffite and his men. Captain Holmes took a group of thirty or forty men in small boats and proceeded toward Barataria. But Jean Laffite was forewarned of the expedition by his brother Pierre. According to the records of the times Jean Laffite laughed uproariously when he learned that Holmes was heading for Barataria with such a small company. Laffite took his boats loaded with merchandise through devious waterways and avoided Holmes and his men rather than get involved in a skirmish which could end only in disaster for Holmes.

But Holmes was not to be outwitted so easily. In the fall, Holmes returned with a larger force, surprised Jean and Pierre Laffite with contraband merchandise and took them to New Orleans as prisoners. The brothers were released on bail and neither showed up for trial. Six writs of arrest were issued for Jean and Pierre but all were returned with the notation “Not found in New Orleans.” It seemed reasonable to assume that no one seriously wanted to find them.

The acceptance of piracy and smuggling as elements of legitimate trade in New Orleans was not so astonishing as it might seem because Louisiana commerce for many years prior to this time had been built on such a foundation. Smuggling to avoid tariffs and then selling at cheap prices, as one historian said, “had become a part of the habits of life there.” The people were satisfied for the most part because the smuggled goods were cheaper than they would have been had duties been paid. Merchants were satisfied because they were able to obtain scarce merchandise and make a good profit. Men such as Laffite were regarded as performing a necessary function for the community at no little personal risk--and only a minority attached any moral stigma to the trade.

The confidential and intimate relationship between the pirates and their customers reached its peak on New Year’s Day, 1814. Handbills were boldly scattered in public places and prominently displayed throughout New Orleans announcing that the brothers Laffite, on January 20, would offer at auction at “The Temple” a quantity of slaves and merchandise.

The Temple was a favorite market place for the Laffites. It was an ancient Indian mound of white shells where, legend had it, Indians of the area had gathered to give human sacrifices to appease their gods. The pirates had built a platform at the edge of the water, onto which they could unload their boats. There they spread their merchandise for all to see who came from New Orleans. Since it was easily accessible, there was never any lack of buyers when the auctioneer went to work.

Claiborne was infuriated by the distribution of handbills announcing the auction. The pirates were offering for sale 415 slaves in addition to a supply of “fine foreign merchandise.” Claiborne called in the U.S. Collector of Customs to discuss what could be done about this outrageous disregard of the laws of the United States. Both must have known that there was not much that could be done. Nevertheless the Collector ordered a small force to proceed to The Temple to “defeat the purpose of the law infractors.”

Jean Laffite and his companions attacked the Customs men, killing one man and wounding two others fatally. Nine of the officers were held as prisoners by the pirates while they proceeded with their auction as planned. It was reported that buyers came from many parts of Louisiana. They bought all the slaves that were put on the block. And the Laffites considered the auction a great success.

The Collector wrote to Governor Claiborne: “It is high time that the contrabandists, dispersed throughout the State, should be taught to respect our laws, and I hold it my duty to call on your excellency for a force adequate to the exigency of the case.”

Claiborne could have dispatched a state militia against the pirate gang, but he hesitated to do this because he already had had one embarrassing experience with the militia. He had ordered a company of troops to move against the Baratarians, but Jean Laffite had met this problem by the simple expedient of bribing the entire expeditionary force. It has been recorded that “the brave leaders of the Baratarians had spared their lives, loaded them with costly presents and had allowed them to return safely to New Orleans.”

Again Claiborne pleaded in a letter to the legislature for action, saying: “The evil requires a strong corrective. Force must be resorted to. These lawless men can alone be operated upon by their fears and the certainty of punishment. I have not been able to ascertain their numbers ... but they are represented to be from 300 to 500, perhaps more.... So numerous and bold are the followers of Laffite, and, I grieve to say it, such is the countenance afforded him by some of our citizens, to me unknown, that all efforts to apprehend this high offender have hitherto been baffled.” As is the history of many complaints to legislatures, the matter was referred to a committee, where it died quietly.